Can we start by saying WOW! You may already know about Mike Ball dive expeditions. Perhaps you have even read the trip itinerary or had friends recommend the trip, and I guess if you are here reading this article, you are probably digging a little deeper trying to do some more re-search to see is it worth it?

Can we give you the short answer? … absolutely it’s worth it!

Who are we?

My name is Clint Carroll, I’m the manager of Cairns Dive Adventures, I have just clocked over 738 dives (at the time of writing this article) on the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns. I have been diving here for over 15 years! Wow time goes by fast!

The dive team and I operate a small boutique dive travel agency based here in Cairns at 103 – Esplanade (Cairns Dive Adventures). We have been arranging dive trips to the Great Barrier Reef and booking divers from all over the World for the past 15 years. We send people on all the overnight liveaboards, day dive boats and learn to dive courses from both Cairns and Port Doulgas in Australia.

“When divers spend over a certain amount of money with us, we send them out to the reef with our 1 x free underwater camera hire service! This is a spectacular opportunity for divers to capture 4k video and stunning underwater photos”.

Consequently, the dive team and I also get the opportunity to dive on all the liveaboards, day dive boat trips, and extended expeditions personally. We oblige and take the tour operators up on their offers ?(one of the perks of the job).

So, after 15 years of diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, this is our Mike Ball Coral Sea & Cod Hole Expedition – 5 Night trip review.

Ok let’s get into it,

Who is this trip for:

This Mike Ball Coral Sea & Cod Hole Expedition – 5 Night trip is for Advanced diver certification or higher. If you only have your open water certification then you will need to obtain your advanced certification. You can complete this while out on the boat (optional extra cost), but we would highly recommend you get your advanced certification before going out on this boat. This will save you time so that once you are on the trip you can simply enjoy every single dive (No need to waste any dives training).

Now myself I dive on regular air and have been doing so for over 15 years but many divers on this boat will be diving Nitrox. If you have this certification, you are well catered too.

This trip is for divers that really want to dive the brightest and most colourful dive sites on the Great Barrier Reef. The trip also dives at Osprey Reef, a dormant volcano sitting in 1000 meters of water in the Coral Sea. It is at Osprey Reef you can find 40+ meter underwater visibility, giant soft corals, large colourful pink and orange sea fans, large schools of big eye trevally and the famous North Horn shark dive, one of the most iconic dives in all of Australia.

When is the best time to go:

Well, the trip operates all year round and we personally travelled in the first week of September. The winds were South Easterly of about 18/20 knots. This does make your nighttime traveling a little rocky. The boat is a large twin hull vessel (Length – 30 m (100ft) Beam Width – 10.5m (35ft) so it is very stable in the water. But in 18 / 20knots of wind it does bob around like all boats do. Especially at nighttime as this is when the boat is traveling large distances. The skipper Captain Trevor Jackson, an iconic figure in the Cairns and Great Barrier Reef dive industry, moves the boat longer in the evening so divers wake up each morning at fresh dive sites each day.

When is the best time to go? In a perfect World we would say the whole month of October, the first 2 weeks of November and the months of April and May each year. Now the weather seems to be becoming more unpredictable each year. Currently at the time of writing Hurricane Milton is about to lash the Florida Coast in the USA.

Anyway, you can join this boat 52 weeks a year and you will generally have a fantastic time and get some magnificent diving in. But if you travel in the months mentioned above (October, November, April and May each year) generally you get lower winds, warmer water temperatures with blue skies and sunshine and generally little to no rain.

So what was the itinerary and what dive sites did we visit? Read on to find our more!

Day – 01: Check-In and Departure:

So, the trip departs Cairns every Thursday, check in as at the Mike Ball dive shop located (3-Abbott Street, Cairns City QLD 4870) check in before 4:00pm to drop off your luggage, dive gear and any underwater camera gear you may be hauling. You will then check in directly on the boat located at the Cairns Cruise Liner Terminal (Wharf Street, Cairns City QLD 4870) check in and meet the crew happens at 5:45pm.

Once on board the crew guide you to your cabin where your luggage has already been transferred to your room. Everybody will head to the main saloon on the boat to receive the boat induction, boat safety procedures, an explanation on how the trip will run, double check all dive gear and, dive capabilities and organise dive buddies. After some light refreshments it’s time to jump into bed around 7:30pm. The boat does start rocking around this time, so it is best to try go to sleep and get some rest for the big day tomorrow. (Please note dinner is not included on the first night so it’s best to eat something in the afternoon before you board).

Day – 02: It’s Dive Time!

Marika our trip director will come knocking on your door at around 6:00am. Wakiee, Wakiee its dive time! You should get used to this you will hear it every morning ? Once up and out of bed and in the upstairs saloon a light continental breakfast is served like fresh fruits, tea, coffee, breakfast cereals, Greek yogurts and muffins. Once everyone is up its out onto the dive deck for the first dive briefing.

Today we have arrived at a beautiful dive site called: Summer Bay with conditions as follows:

Visibility on this dive was sitting at around 30+ meters so just amazing for our first dive of the trip. A great way to get comfortable in your dive gear, make sure you have enough weight, and start to get to know your dive buddy. Underwater when you have such magnificent visibility you literally can see everything around you. We discovered beautiful plate corals, larger boulder corals all your usual trumpet fish, dogtooth puffers, schooling small barracuda, flatworms, and lots of beautiful coral. A great way to get acquainted with the Northern ribbon reefs.

Now this dive site is one of the most famous dive sites on the ribbon reefs for a reason! It is spectacular! Steves’s Bommie is a large deep bommie sitting in around 28 meters of water extending all the way up to about 8 meters under the surface. Basically, once you enter the water you head straight down to the bottom and then start to circle around in a clockwise pattern slowing getting shallower as you enjoy the dive. This bommie is full of life, from beautiful pink and purple soft corals, thousands of tiny glass fish, yellow tail fusiliers, large vibrant pink and orange seafans, a multitudes of smaller fish darting in and out of the many nooks and crevices that make up the bommies surface. This is one of those dives everybody on the boat was raving about for the next day or two. Just spectacular. See the photos attached to this article to give you an idea how amazing the marine life and coral is as Steve’s Bommie.

Another beautiful dive site, not quite as amazing as the previous site but still a lovely dive. We tracked down to just over 19 meters on this dive and as mentioned we found large giant sea clams some look to be over 70 years old. With visibility still sitting at over 30+ meters we really soaked up the beautiful corals and marine life. We were starting to get the hang of this now. We are all now settling into our gear and dive weights.

This was the night dive. Most divers entering the water at 6:10pm and spending nearly an hour with underwater flashlights trying to spot all the little night critters that like to come out to play. This is a great first night dive, not too deep and easy enough to find the reef and make it back to boat in time for dessert.

After the first day of dives now complete it was time to hang up all the dive gear and prepare our underwater cameras and video camera gear. Time to get all batteries charged up and replace the camera cards ready for a big day of diving tomorrow. We also use this time to look on the laptop at the days photos and video to see what we got right and what we got wrong.

Tonight, we all head to bed early as the skipper Captain Trevor Jackson has announced that we start the overnight steam out to Osprey Reef! A 12-hour journey thru the night so that by tomorrow morning we will be waking up at famous Osprey Reef!

Day – 03: Osprey Reef, False Entrance, North Horn Shark Dive!

So, we get our normal 6:00am wakeup call … its dive time wakie wakie! After dragging ourselves out of bed, we head upstairs for a light continental breakfast followed by a briefing about how today we run. We then head out onto the dive deck for our 1^st dive briefing. This morning the first dive with be at False Entrance! Our first dive at Osprey Reef and everyone is excited.

False Entrance dive site has two or three large valley type canyons that extend from up in the shallows all the way down off the top of the reef down to around 28 / 35 meters before going off over the edge of Osprey Reefs 1000-meter wall. This is grandiose dive.

It feels like you’re diving amongst giants.

Located in the depths of valleys are white sandy bottoms and sitting in around 18 meters of water we find a large school of medium sized trevally. This is the place you can photograph schools circling around divers.  At the mouth of False Entrance sitting in around 28 meters there are giant red and yellow soft corals the size of a diver. Just spectacular.

Now this dive is one of the highlights of the entire trip. We gather round for the detailed dive briefing, where the crew explain all the exact procedures of what is going to happen. The plan is that all dives will enter the water and slowly make our way down to the North Horn underwater ampetheatre, there we all find a place on the rocky wall. Once everyone is in position the crew will lower down a small fish cage that houses frozen tuna heads.

We all gear up, enter the water, start the dive and get into position. The crew now lowers the feeding cage down and it is at this point the sharks really step up the crazy mode. Darting in and out between divers. We spot large grey whaler, white tip, silver tip and even giant potato cods all working into a frenzy. They know what is about to happen.

The lid of the food container is thrust open and out pops 3 or 4 large tuna heads floating up where the sharks literally start devouring them. I would say at this point there are easily over 40 large sharks now in very close proximity to us.

This is one of the best places for taking magnificent photographs of sharks up close. They really will be less than 1 meter in front of you. Make sure you have your shutter set to higher speed, sharks move fast so it is easy to get blurry photos on a slow shutter speed.

As the food disappear then so do the sharks, and within about 5 minutes most had disappeared off into the deep blue walls of Osprey Reef. This is a dive you will remember the rest of your life.

West Wall is a drift dive where divers are dropped in along the West Wall side of osprey reef and you drift all the way back to the boat moored at North Horn. It is on this site you can find large healthy giant seafans all sitting deeper than 22 meters. These make for spectacular wide-angle photos. Allot of diver’s head down to around 27 meters and drift along the wall slowly getting shallower and shallower.

“One thing about diving at Osprey Reef is most dives are generally deep dives of over 20+ meters on nearly every dive.” Remember to keep an eye on your bottom time and remember not to go into decompression.

So, this site there are allot of large boulder type coral structures with swim throughs, and it is at one of these swim thrus mini caves you can find an old, dislodged admiralty anchor. The only problem is it is very hard to find. We enjoyed two dives at this site and both times could not find the anchor! But it could be we were looking in the wrong spot. This dive site you wonder thru a maze of giant corals, smaller canyons and valleys.

So, this was the last dive of the day another dive at Admiralty Anchor. Most divers entered the water around 6:20pm, the wind had picked up and the visibility had dropped slightly. But some divers found the anchor, just not us! The night dive can be hit and miss, sometimes there are allot of marine animals out at night and sometimes not. A few nights later we had a spectacular night dive, read on to find out more.

So, after dinner we all sat around and had a brief talk about the amazing diving at Osprey, it really is something very special and everyone on board had their own unique experiences. It was a fantastic experience. At around 7:30pm the skipper announced that they will now make the departure from Osprey Reef to arrive back at the ribbon reefs by morning. We all headed back to our rooms and bunkered down for the rough night ahead.

Day-04: The Ribbon Reefs & the Cod Hole:

We arrive back on the Northern Ribbon reefs around 6:30am and with the usually early morning wake up call all divers were up enjoying breakfast and learning about the day’s adventures ahead. Today we will be diving the famous Cod Hole, so everyone is very excited and prepares for the dive.

Dive briefings on Mike Ball are fantastic, the crew give very detailed dive briefings, with maps, charts and detailed description of the dive conditions, current and where to go and find the best stuff. As you may be aware all diving on Mike Ball is unguided, this gives you the chance to buddy up and explore the reef in your own buddy pairs.

The Cod Hole is famous for giant potato cod that live in the area. In the past dive boats used to feed the cod to bring them in, but this practise has stopped so now the cod freely come and go as they please without being enticed by food. We had a beautiful large cod meet us as soon as we entered the water. These guys come in extremely close and are not afraid to eyeball you up very close.

After some brief interactions with this giant potato cod, we decide to head off to the Southern part of the cod hole that has some of the brightest, healthiest reef system we have ever seen. Large plat corals, massive coral coverage and large schools of Diagonal Banded Sweetlip fish. The fish band together up in the shallows, impressive silver and black patterns with bright yellow pectoral fins and large lips. They are a photographers dream as the sit together in large schools of 50 or so.

After a nice hot cooked breakfast, it was time to jump in again. The cod hole has several different parts to the dive site, so it was fantastic to be able to drop in again and explore the outer reef wall. There is a large deep wall that runs on the southern part of the dive site and after exploring this we decided to head back up into the shallow coral gardens to have a final play with the Diagonal Banded Sweetlips fish. This dive site has many stunning features, so it was fantastic the skipper allowed us to stop and complete two dive here.

At this site the current had picked up to a moderate amount and it was noticeable as soon as we dropped in we found ourselves being swept up in the stronger current. Not to worry the dive crew had laid a bridal line for us to pull ourselves along and then descend the mooring line. Once at the bottom it was calm, so allowed a nice easy warm water dive with allot of fish life. A highlight was a massive green sea turtle. This was one of the largest turtles we had ever seen it must have been 80 years old.

So, this will be the last night dive of the trip, so we are all excited and sad to think our dive adventures are nearly finished. Everyone onboard has had a magnificent adventure the reefs and marine life have been spectacular.

At the dive briefing we have been told this is a fantastic night dive. We weren’t quite sure why, but we entered the water at 5:45pm a little earlier than all the other night dives on the trip. We watched the sun go down and all the night critters come out. We filmed to beautiful hawksbill sea turtles looking for a place to hide for the night and as the darkness rolled in out came the sharks!

Now its pretty normal to have plenty of large giant trevally fish and red sea bass diving along side of you and even bumping into you in the chance for a distressed or dislodged fish. But it was the sharks the took the highlight.

A huge array of white tip and black tip reefs sharks were also following us up into the shallows of this dive site and wow were they active. Large groups of white tips and black tips appeared to be hunting together in packs and did they put on a show.

We captured some amazing video footage of this, and it gave us a real insight to their night time behaviours up on the reef.

After returning to the boat, drying up and enjoying desert that was a fantastic last night dive.

Tonight, the crew put on a beautiful meal and by the time we all eat desert we were all very tired and everyone retreated for an early night. Tomorrow would be the last dive day.

Day-05: Diners Den, Crack-A-Jack, Flare Point and Night BBQ:

This morning there was a magical sunrise with orange, purples and an array of beautiful morning colours. After the light continental breakfast, it was diving time! Today would be our last full day of diving, weather condition was beautiful the current was light with light south easterly winds of just 15knots.

Most divers went down to round 21 meters this morning and the was a beautiful large puffer fish near the mooring line, this kept everyone entertained while descending and returning to the boat.

The dive briefing for this one was easy, the dive site Crack a Jack is a bommie located in about 30 meters of deep water. There is nothing else around this bommie, so it seems to be a pinnacle reef protruding up to the surface. There was a bit of current on this dive and the water visibility had dropped but where we instore for a fantastic dive.

Crack a Jack is home to large seafans, beautiful large purple and pink soft corals, sea snakes, hundreds of glass fish and very healthy corals and marine life. The site is a little like Steve’s bommie and all divers descended to around 30 meters and then circled the bommie in a clockwise direction slowing ascending to the surface as the dive progressed.

Tiny baby pygmy seahorses were found in the pink seafans, the boat videographer captured some beautiful footage of these little guys.

The whole boat had such an awesome dive we decided to dive it again. After a short 1-hour surface interval divers got back into there gear to explore again. Continuing from the previous dive of going down deep at first and ascending shallower while circling in a clockwise direction. You really could spend hours and hours at this dive site, the harder you looked the more species you would find. Crocodile fish, stone fish, glass fish, nudibranchs, true anemonefish, coral trouts, moral eels, trevally, and large array of barracuda.

Visibility was sitting around 20 meters at this point and for our last dive of the trip Flare Point overs divers a wide bay of soft and hard coral with gentle sloping walls. A little current made us drift along the reef but this also allows us to relax. Spotting two large cuttlefish trying to hide in the coral gardens, they made for some beautiful photos against the shimmering afternoon sunlight. This was a beautiful dive to the trip and everyone thoroughly enjoyed their time on the boat.

After the dive it was time to pack up and wash down all dive gear, wash all camera gear and hand all wetsuits, dive hoodies and jackets up on the top deck to try get dry before we arrived back at Cairns tomorrow morning (Tuesday morning).

After everyone had washed down their gear, had a shower and cleaned up the sun started setting, everyone was dressed nicely with a glass of wine or beer in hand watching the sun go down. This was a moment of solitude; it was a time to reflect on the past few days of spectacular diving.

Tonight, the crew put on a beautiful BBQ on the upper rear deck of the boat. Captain Trevor Jackson whips out the guitar and proceeds to sing a ling list of good old rock tunes and melodies. A fantastic night to chat with the crew, fellow divers and great way to wrap up the trip.

It was off to be for the last night of travel as tomorrow morning we arrive back at Cairns at around 7:00am. Packing our gear, and disembarking the boat we had time for one last group photo before the bus carried us all away back to our hotels and travel houses.

This would be a trip to remember, fantastic crew, beautiful meals and with out a doubt World Class Diving!

Conclusion: